The Nebraska Reaction
by Daedaleopsis
Summary: Penny's parents discuss how they feel about their daughter's engagement to Leonard.


Connie was waiting for her husband on the porch swing, two glasses of ice cold lemonade sitting on the little table beside her. Her husband joined her, sinking onto the swing with a long drawn-out sigh. He took off the worn baseball cap on his head, dusted it by slapping it against his knee a few times, and settled it back onto his head. Connie, long used to his habits, handed him his lemonade after he had finished his ritual.

"Perfect," Wyatt declared after taking a long swallow. It was what he always said, but Connie still beamed at the compliment. He leaned back, putting an arm around his wife.

"So our little slugger's gone and gotten herself engaged, and her doing the proposing, no less," he said thoughtfully. "What kind of gutless lunkhead isn't man enough to ask his girl to marry him?" He tilted his glass, watching the pale yellow liquid flow from one side of the glass to the other.

Connie could tell he was troubled by the news. "You told her you liked him," she reminded him mildly.

Wyatt almost smiled at the gentle tone in his wife's voice. In the thirty-two years they'd been married, he could count on one hand the number of times he'd seen her get worked up enough to lose her temper. She was one of the most even-tempered people he had ever met, and she was like a placid ocean that quenched his frequent white-hot flashes of temper.

He sighed again. "What else was I supposed to say? I told her Kurt was a lyin', cheatin' bastard, and then she ran away to California with him. I figured if I told her I approved of this one, she'd dump him so fast, his head would spin."

Connie linked an arm through her husband's and leaned her head on his shoulder. "That's not the whole truth, Bob. At one point, you even tried to get them back together."

Wyatt grinned at the nickname. Connie had been the first to call him "Bob", back when they were dating. She had protested that there was no good nickname for Wyatt, so he told her to call him by the first name that popped into his head. Now, after more than thirty years of other people hearing his nickname, he answered to either one. His smile faded as he thought about his youngest, and admittedly his favorite, child.

"Penny's always had all these dreams," he said quietly. "When I first met Leonard, he was a sight better than that Kurt fella. I thought maybe this time, she'd found someone who'd support her and make her happy. But now all I hear is how he's tellin' her to be realistic, to do something practical. She's dyin' a little at a time inside every time he says stuff like that because it means he don't have faith in her. I may have tried to keep 'em together at one point, but I've realized my mistake. He's not the kind of man I want for my daughter."

"I know she's unhappy," Connie added quietly. "The last time she visited, she couldn't go through the day without a drink. I could see her fingers itchin' for a glass of wine. I tried to get her to talk about it, but she just said I wouldn't understand. Nothin's changed there. I guess every mother's bound to have her daughter think she has no idea what's what."

Wyatt pulled his wife close again and kissed the top of her head. "She never did understand that just because you're not the type to stand up and lead a crowd, doesn't mean you don't have your own kind of strength."

Connie smiled a little sadly and twined her fingers with his.

"I just don't know what we can do at this point," Wyatt said.

"I don't think there is anything we can do, except to love her and support her. We can be there to listen and tell her we believe in her," she said.

"What good is that gonna do?" Wyatt asked doubtfully.

Connie sighed. "Penny's always been headstrong. There's nothing we can say now that she would listen to. All we can do is be there to pick up the pieces when everything falls apart."

"You're sure it will come to that?" Wyatt asked. The truth was, he was already convinced in his own mind, but he wanted to hear what his wife had to say. Sometimes she was so quiet, he had to coax her to share her thoughts.

Connie held up one hand and ticked off points on her fingers. "He doesn't respect her. He says he supports her dreams but keeps urgin' her to get what he calls a 'real job' which in his mind just seems to mean more money. They don't talk about the important stuff. And he whines and manipulates instead of acting like a man. Sooner or later, Penny's gonna snap out of this blue funk she's in and realize she deserves better."

"If we're lucky, she'll figure it out before she legally ties herself to that spineless wuss," Wyatt grumbled.

Connie grinned wryly. "Or at the very least, we can hope she won't shoot him in the backside with a shotgun and then claim she thought he was an intruder, like Penny's sister did."

Wyatt began chuckling. "Our girls got spunk, I'll tell you that. When Beth filled her cheatin' bastard of a husband's hide full of pellets, it was the funniest thing I heard all year."

"Be serious, Bob," Connie scolded, but her eyes were dancing with suppressed laughter as she said it. "Besides, I don't think shotguns are legal in California. Bad enough that one of our children is constantly in and out of jail. Anyway, I don't think Leonard's a bad sort. He's just one of those wishy-washy liberal types. Penny doesn't need someone who'll let her walk all over him."

"Are you sure we can't just say all this to Penny? Maybe she'd listen," Wyatt complained. His wife gave him a withering stare.

His wife gave him a withering stare. "The time for bonding with her over softball and fixin' up the old tractor is long gone, Bob, and you know it."

"All right, fine, we'll do it your way," Wyatt said, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I just hope Penny doesn't take too long to come to her senses."


End file.
